Going Global in the Reputation Economy: shifting towards reputational capital as the organisation’s most valuable asset

When it comes to choice, customers value their perception of an organization over the features of the organization’s products or services, which means globally, reputation has become a crucial asset, able to drive the overall performance of a company.

These were some of the conclusions drawn at the "Going Global in the Reputation Economy", a conference held in Milan by the Reputation Institute in cooperation with Ferpi.

Three days of best practice, sharing and networking opportunities focused on how to export the organization's reputational capital in the developing countries.

More than 30 countries participated, including Colombia, Panama, Peru, Chile, United States, Canada, South Africa, Iran, Japan, Australia, India, Korea and Russia - clear evidence that reputation has become a global matter.

Key conclusions:

Discussion has shifted from the importance of finding a shared definition of "reputation" and a way of measuring it to managing reputation properly so the entire organization can benefit.

Reputation has to be taken seriously - it's on the agenda of CEOs and even families.

Companies will face the challenge of learning to listen to their stakeholders and correctly understand their needs and opinions, making the most of this feedback to change both internally and externally for the better. To do so, organizations need to rely on the right tools and to count on tangible evidence that reputation has a direct and positive impact on ROA, ROI, market capitalization and income.

In the eyes of consumers, what an organization "is" counts more than what it produces, and this is true worldwide.

According to the Global RepTraktm 100, a study conducted on more than 100.000 participants, BMW, Sony and Disney are the companies with the best global reputation.

It also emerged that taking a company's reputation beyond its geographical borders is not an easy task.

Reputation has to do with an emotional relationship deeply tied to the organization's history and actions.

Being able to transfer this link all over the world is the key to success, and one way of doing it can be through the online word of mouth.

Companies that properly understand the value of reputation see an improvement in their key performance indicators and succeed in correctly identifying which functions are to be prioritized in each market.

In a few years' time, capital will be generated not only by products but also – and mainly by – reputation.